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Skiing in a Pros Pocket: Markus Eder

Markus Eder grew up in Italy, renowned for it's skiing but not it's freeskiers, which is now changing. Markus Eder has paved the way for Italian freeskiing, establishing a large presence in Europe. He's competed at Freestyle.CH, won parts of the FWT and arrived late in Sochi to still put down a firm and stylish run. He's the definition of versatile: you can throw him at a rail, a huge kicker, an inner city comp, a large face in the FWT or with the world watching him on the Olympic stage, and you'll always get a brilliant result. He answers in detail an overview of how he ticks and how he got his tricks (Appropriate seen as he's on the Swatch team)

&#9835; when the pow hits your face, that's a good day &#9835; {FWT}

You got out of the park and into the big mountains, yet can go straight back. Why do you think this happened?

I just like doing both pretty much the same way and when I'm on a pow trip for a while I feel like it motivates me so much to shred park and the other way around as well. Obviously it's hard to do both on a high level as it's super different. Also I'm can't really focusing on one thing like other riders do but it's damn fun so I'll continue!

You're from Italy, land of the gapers. What made you strive to be the best Italian freeskier at the moment?

My home ski resort is definitely filled with gapers rocking the eurogap all day long but thank god those are just the tourists.

I think the reason that I'm at where I am now is probably the passion for mountains, the snow and skiing in general which my parents passed me along. I'd been ski racing for ten years till a friend, and pretty much the only dude with freestyle skis around at that time, lent me the first ski movie I'd ever seen. It took me completely over. During that summer I watched it at least a hundred times and started to trash the walls of my bedroom with freeski posters! I decided to go to a school where we had the weekends off so I could ski. After finishing school I searched for a job where i could take two months off in the winter. The year after it got three months, then five months till i could make a living out of it and i quit working. My life got shaped by the ski fever I had and still have.

Working up a sweat in the great white north, AK shredding {MSP}

What was Sochi like for you and your team?

There is a lot of shit going on about the whole FIS and Olympics thing. We were not allowed to represent our sponsors, which pretty much brought us there. Every country could just send four riders so they can sell the TV rights to different countries, and because of that obviously there weren't all the best riders etc etc. The support of our federation wasn't that great either compare to many other countries. Till last summer I didn't have a clue if there's even the possibility for me to go as we didn't even have a team jet. Then we got sent to Sochi four days late so that we missed three days of training and I wasn't even allowed to complain as I had to sign a contract with the federation that pretty much shuts athletes up.

But once we got there, Sochi was definitely an experience of a lifetime! The slope style course was the sickest one I've ever skied. A super fun jib section and crazy big but safe jumps. Then to land the best run I ever did in front of the biggest audience ever was an amazing feeling! It was also really cool to go watch other disciplines and hang out with these athletes. That's also where I realized how damn lucky we actually are that we didn't get squeezed into this whole FIS system earlier. So many other sports lost their identity because of it. I think by now freeskiing has such a big personality that FIS won't be able to break us! As long as we stay rebelling kids and have fun doing it, it's not gonna be a problem to keep it a cool way to live!

Your first time in Alaska, how was it? Did it live up to your expectations?

Last year was the first time in AK for me filming for MSPs "Days of my Youth" with Richard Permin and Cody Townsend. And actually it wasn't really how I expected it to be. I was a total AK rookie with the two bosses who've come here more than eight seasons in a row so I thought I'll take the chance and learn from their experience.

But with Cody getting hurt on the second day and Richy on the third day, all the sudden I was by myself in the middle of gnarly lines, not knowing if the cliffs i looked at where 5 or 20 meters or where the sluff could take me over. It definitely made nervous. By the end fortunately I got some good shots without getting hurt and right now, a year after, I'm sitting here in the lodge with Cody and Richy again, waiting for snow and our redemption!

I'm traveling a bunch and I'm not really at home much, but when i am, it doesn't really matter what I shred, as long as it's with all my buddies. If it's a good pow day we'll rock the fat skis and if it's slushy it's time to hit the snowpark with a little BBQ for lunch and beers to end the day.

Did it hinder you at all being 6' 2", one of the tallest competitive skiers?

It's definitely harder to stomp big cliffs in the powder if you're tall. Also I think it's putting more forces and stress on knees and the rest of your body so the possibility to get hurt is higher. The cliffs and jumps also look smaller sometimes. But actually I don't wanna puss around because some of the best skiers like Russ, Bobby or Andreas are tall too and killing it anyways.

Italy had a crazy snow year this year, I was there and it was like Japan in February. Did you get to shred back home this season at all?

I didn't really get to hit it when we got the big snowfalls in December and January but I was home for a few days in February and then after the Olympics and had some epic pow days! Let's hold the fingers crossed for much powder next year as well!

Your dream line:

An AK spine in my homeresort accessible with the gondola with a perfect natural take off at the end where you could possibly do a double

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